


nobody's business

by eutrash (AreteNike)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Kinda, Minor Angst, No Voltron, Reincarnation AU, extremely vague backstory, id be worried about spoiling in the tags but i know perfectly well no one reads thsi stuff, its 1am, uhhhhhhhhh shiro is like 40 but the kids are kids idk, unless you use your imagination, vague hints of magic n stuff, whatever you think this is... it isnt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 11:02:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13569234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreteNike/pseuds/eutrash
Summary: Keith goes to high school, again, according to him anyway. Not that anyone really believes that.





	nobody's business

**Author's Note:**

> i dunno yall i read a high school au today which i dont usually do because im old and its not relatable anymore btu my brain was like "what if we had to do high school..... again?" so i inflicted that on keith and here we are i guess. i wrote this over the past like two hours and now its past my bedtime...
> 
> dont expect answers :')

No one quite knows what to think of Keith.

That, Pidge is pretty sure, is the way he likes it. In a matter of weeks he's become the most talked about person in school by sheer lack of fucks given, but it hasn't changed anything about him. He still just... does his thing. Whatever his thing is.

"Look, I get you're a born genius or whatever," Lance says at lunch, sandwich in one hand and pen in the other. "But some of us actually have to study."

"I wasn't born knowing calculus," Keith says from where he's draped across the table, taking up way more than his fair share of space.

"Is that because you didn't already know, or because you forgot?" asks Hunk, the enabler.

"Forgot," Keith mumbles.

Lately, his thing has been hinting that this is not his first time through high school. Pidge has a vague suspicion that he's some kind of undercover cop, 21 Jump Street-style. Not that he looks old enough, but it's not like Pidge looks her age either.

Then again, if he's really an undercover cop, he's a damn good actor, because he pulls off the angsty teenager thing _really_ well.

Whoever he is, though, he's a solid mystery, and that's why the high school rumor mill is positively rampant with theories. Pidge supposes she's lucky he deigns to hang out with them, because at least she gets to witness said mystery up close and personal.

"Whatever," says Lance, already returning to his homework. Hunk returns to his food. Pidge has already finished both and therefore has nothing to return to right now.

"D'you really want your face that close to the table?" she asks him instead. "Who knows when it was last cleaned?"

Keith languidly shifts his gaze across the table to her without moving his cheek from the plastic.

"Life is temporary," he says.

Hunk rolls his eyes. Lance closes them for one brief, pleading moment. And Pidge? Pidge just nods slowly, because what do you even say to a comment like that said in earnest?

Yeah, no one knows what to think of Keith.

* * *

Lance can admit, by this point, that no, he doesn't really hate Keith. They're kind of friends now, even though the guy is pretty weird. And now that he's started showing up to GSA meetings? Lance has to admit some of his opinions on him have really improved, if only because he now has someone in his friend group to talk about boys with.

In theory.

"Okay, so, what do you think about Rolo?" Lance asks with increasing desperation. "Come on, you gotta think _someone_ at this school is attractive."

Keith makes a face. "He's like, sixteen."

" _You're_ sixteen."

Keith glances away and back again. " _Technically_ ," he says, and Lance throws back his head.

"Why do you have to be so _difficult?_ " he groans.

Some opinions have improved, yeah, but not all.

* * *

"You ever think," Hunk asks quietly, "about, like... how petty all this stuff is?"

They're currently hiding in the drama classroom, because some girl decided that right outside the door was a good place to stage some sort of dramatic friend-break-up. Which, y'know, is fascinating, and Hunk is definitely half-listening, but it's inconvenient, because they can't leave without making it _really_ awkward.

"All the time," says Keith.

"It's like... in a few more years, we'll all be outta here, y'know?" Hunk continues in a whisper. "Like, I don't _plan_ to ditch you guys, but none of the social drama here will affect anything, ever."

"Yes! Thank you!" Keith hisses, looking almost pleased. "None of it matters!"

"I mean, it feels important at the time," Hunk amends as someone outside starts crying. "But you take a step back and it's like... this is so pointless."

Keith looks mournfully toward the door, where the sobbing is only growing louder and is now accompanied by yelling again.

"If only everyone could realize that," he says. Man, this would be really telling about Keith's personality, if he hadn't long since made it clear he doesn't care what anyone thinks of him. Then again, Hunk figures, it still kinda does. Or proves Keith has indeed done high school before, either way.

* * *

"Not that I don't believe in fortune-telling, but..."

"Oh come on, Pidge," Lance says, dragging her and therefore Keith and Hunk as well into the festival tent. "Live a little."

Pidge glances back, hoping one of the other boys will come to her aid, but Hunk looks excited and Keith just looks pensive. Traitors.

"Ah!" says the woman inside the tent, sweeping her silvery hair back and rising to stand as they gather before her. Weirdly, there's no one else here. "Welcome. May I?"

She lifts her hands to Lance, who nods eagerly. She places two fingers to each of his temples and closes her eyes as Lance all but vibrates with excitement. Pidge can feel it, because he's still got her wrist in a steel grip.

"Hm," says the woman softly, and she opens her eyes. "Your friends do love you, you know."

Lance stops vibrating.

"Yes," she continues. "You are just as important as you claim to be." And with that apparent bombshell, she turns to Pidge. "May I?"

"Sure," Pidge blurts before she can think about it, shaken by Lance's sudden change in demeanor. He almost looks like he's going to cry.

So the woman touches Pidge's temples, too. Pidge examines her face; she can't be younger than thirty, and there are marks in pink facepaint on her cheekbones instead of blush or anything, though the rest of her makeup is pretty normal. When she opens her eyes, they're blue and sparkling.

"You need nothing from me," she says then, which, frankly, is a huge letdown. At Pidge's frown, she smiles. "You will get your brother back, though, and soon. I can promise you that."

The _fuck_.

Pidge doesn't even hear what she says to Hunk; there's no way this woman could possibly know about Matt. Could know he's been missing for years, or--well, theoretically she could, but she couldn't have known that Pidge has never stopped believing he's alive. That she's getting close to figuring what happened to him.

Maybe... maybe this fortune-teller is the real deal.

Pidge tunes back in in time to see the woman press her fingers to Keith's temples, and almost immediately gasp and step back. Keith's brow wrinkles and the woman's face drops in sorrow.

"I have never met anyone so terribly alone," she says softly. Then, louder, "But you don't have to be."

Keith raises an eyebrow, and somehow he looks so _tired_. "Don't I?" he counters.

"Some things are ageless--trust most of all," she says. "And... I do not think you are the only one."

"There's no way to find them," Keith mutters. "Didn't you see I've tried?"

"You made barely any effort," she says. "You do not actually want to find them. But they will understand."

Keith sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "I don't think I want them to. It's not the same. And... I don't really want to remember." He glances around. "Speaking of, can you make them forget?"

She sighs too. "Yes," she says sadly, "I can."

"Hey," says Lance, "wait a second--"

* * *

"I can't believe you wouldn't let her tell you your fortune," says Lance as they leave the tent. "I think she was actually legit."

"Honestly, same," says Hunk with a sniffle.

Pidge isn't going to agree verbally, but... yeah. Maybe she was.

Keith just shrugs, though. "Don't care," he says, but he's in a bad mood for the rest of the festival, and Pidge can't figure out why.

* * *

"So!" Lance says cheerfully, dropping into a seat across the table from Keith. "Who are you taking to prom?"

Keith blinks at him. "I'm not going."

"Why not?"

"It's only junior prom, and I don't care anyway."

"Oh, come on." Lance kicks him lightly under the table. "I know you're like, dying for high school to be over, but while you're here you might as well get the full experience, right? Like, at least _try_ to enjoy the moment."

Keith blinks at him again, but after a moment something sets in his face, like maybe for once Lance's words actually got through to him. Then he turns and scans the crowd around them.

"Hey!" he shouts. "You, with the hair and the industrial piercing!" It's not loud enough to catch the whole cafeteria's attention, but enough that a boy with long blonde hair at the next table looks up and points to himself, brow furrowed.

"Yeah, you," Keith says, a little quieter now that he has the guy's attention. "Wanna go to prom with me?"

The boy's eyes widen, and his friends--who form one of the really popular cliques, Jesus, what is Keith thinking--turn to look. Then his eyes narrow thoughtfully for a moment before his ponytailed friend elbows him.

"Certainly!" he calls back. What the shit.

"Cool." Keith turns back to Lance, opens his mouth to speak--and then turns around to face the guy again. "What's your name?"

"Lotor."

Keith gives Lotor a thumbs up and turns back to Lance again.

"I'm taking Lotor to prom," he informs Lance solemnly.

"For fuck's sake," says Lance.

* * *

"So Lotor's a dick, actually," Keith says, dropping into the chair next to where Lance is slowly melting into the tablecloth, watching everyone else dance with their dates. He hadn't managed to get anyone to go with him and came alone, for some fucking reason.

"Big surprise," Lance says distantly. "He's popular."

A pause.

"Wanna be my date for the rest of the night?" Keith asks, totally neutrally.

Well, shit, it's not like Lance is doing anything else right now, or in the forseeable future.

"Only if you dance with me at least once," Lance says, peeling himself off the table to sit up.

"Deal," says Keith, and they shake on it.

* * *

Right, so, Hunk has more or less accepted by this point that Keith is not actually seventeen. He's just kind of decided at this point that Keith has had to repeat a couple of years or something and is hiding his embarrassment behind this mysterious facade.

But this? This changes everything.

"Keith?" the stranger says in shock. He has to be approaching forty, if not there already; his hair is going white in front and there's a faint, faded scar across his nose. He doesn't look like anyone a highschooler should know, dressed in business casual or otherwise.

And then he blinks and shakes his head, and says, "Sorry, you look like someone--" at the same time Keith says, "Shiro?"

They both stop and stare.

"Keith?" the man says again.

"Yeah, it's me," Keith says. "I mean, sort of."

The man--Shiro--shakes his head again. "You look the same as--it's been almost two decades now." He chuckles nervously. "Unless you're a ghost?" He sounds like he almost believes it.

"No, I just kinda..." Keith shrugs. "Came back again. Like, reincarnated."

Okay, what. Shiro looks some sort of cross between seriously concerned and totally disbelieving, or maybe Hunk is just projecting.

"It really is me, though. I remember everything," Keith continues. "Zarkon and all of that shit. The Komar. My death."

Oooookay.

Weirdly, though, Shiro sags as if in relief. He shakes his head again but now he's got a hand pressed to his cheek, eyes _fixed_ on Keith.

"It really is you," he whispers, barely audible, because they're in the middle of a sidewalk on a busy street.

"Yeah," says Keith. He shrugs, and kinda smiles but also kinda looks like he's about to cry. "How is... everyone? Kolivan, Antok...?"

"Antok passed a couple years ago," Shiro says, still sort of breathlessly. "Regris, too. Kolivan is still around, and a few others. Slav."

Keith smirks in a bittersweet sort of way. "Still a pain in the ass?"

Shiro returns the expression. "Till the day he dies, I'm sure."

Hunk decides whatever this is isn't for him to see, as curious as he is. It's one thing to snoop on regular high school drama, but this? Keith talking with a middle-aged stranger like an old friend, about things that supposedly happened in a past life?

It's too much. He slips away, back towards the school, and decides he probably shouldn't tell Pidge and Lance about this either. Not unless Keith brings it up first. He's always kind of hinted at it, but... this is something else.

It's none of his business, really.

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> find me @maternalcube


End file.
